


No Excuse Necessary (To Spoil You)

by Amuly



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anniversary, Birthday, Birthday Presents, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gift Giving, M/M, POV Nile Freeman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28542969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: Joe gives Nicky a jacket and tells him "Happy anniversary." Nicky buys Joe a ring and tells him "Happy birthday." Nile watches all their gift-giving and starts trying to keep track of important dates, so she could participate in the future. Only, as she will learn: you should never trust thousand year old men to remember the exact date of anything.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 53
Kudos: 426





	No Excuse Necessary (To Spoil You)

Nicky and Joe held hands in public like, _all_ the time.

At first it had made Nile laugh, because they looked like two young, hot guys, but they moved like an old couple when they strolled through the streets hand-in-hand, pointing out little items of note to each other. But after it made Nile laugh, she wondered about it. Did they do that everywhere? Like, in Somalia, or Russia? Being gay in those countries could land you in some serious trouble. Maybe they just figured they could handle any heat they caught because of it. Had they always been like this? Like back in the Middle Ages and shit?

“Oh, Nicolo,” Joe was cooing. He had yanked Nicky to a stop in front of a jeweler’s and was pointing at something in the window. He spoke rapidly in one of the _many_ languages Nile didn’t speak fluently (she had some Spanish and a good chunk of Farsi! You _think_ that’d be good for a kid from Chicago, but…) as Nicky nodded indulgently. Nile pulled up to a stop next to them, sipping at her soda.

Joe was pointing at a ring, Nile thought. She couldn’t tell exactly which one he was pointing at from her angle, but there was a display of a half-dozen of them directly in front of him that he was gesturing to as Nicky nodded beside him.

“Buy it,” Nicky said, blessedly in English.

“No, no,” Joe insisted immediately. “It’s overpriced, it’s fourteen karat gold, the ruby-”

“Please, Joe,” Nicky cut him off, fond. He tugged at their joined hands. “It is a matter of a moment.”

“No, no-”

“I will buy it for you, then,” Nicky insisted.

“Nicky-”

Nicky shushed him, and Nile already knew who was going to win this argument. She hadn’t seen them together enough to know if it _always_ went this way—she suspected Joe won as many arguments as he lost, or close to it—but this time it was all Nicky. You didn’t have to know them for decades to be able to see it in their body language, read it on their faces. Joe was pouting, but it was all fake, and Nicky was smiling at him with the calm of someone who knew he had won an argument.

“Come,” Nicky ordered Joe, nodded at the door for the shop. “If this ring is too cheap, we will buy you a better one.”

“Nicky…” Joe warned, but Nicky was dragging him towards the door by their joined hands, and Joe was following him like a lovesick puppy.

Nile rolled her eyes and left them to it as the next shop caught her eye. It was a mish-mash shop: she couldn’t tell exactly what the theme was to the items inside, and it drew her curiosity. Twenty minutes later she was exiting with a new denim jacket, two vinyl records, a Prince book in Catalonian, and some stickers. She ducked into the jewelry shop to see Joe and Nicky still talking to the shop proprietor, heads bent together in an intense discussion of… precious metals, from what Spanish Nile had and was able to apply to the rapidly talking men. Why’d every other language have to talk so much _faster_ than English?

Nicky turned to Nile as she stepped awkwardly in the store, rocking back and forth on her heels.

“Sorry, Nile. We are just finishing.” He said something in Spanish that made Joe laugh and smile fondly, then turned to the jeweler and said something that contained the words “silver,” “gold,” and “euro.” Nile sighed and shook her head. She _really_ needed to work harder on her Duolingo.

Nicky produced an absurd handful of cash and passed it over to the jeweler, who counted it out with a carefully blank expression. He handed back the remainder and Nicky just smiled at him and left him with a “ _gracias. Tenga un buen día.”_

As they left the shop Nicky passed the little velvet case over to Joe.

“Happy anniversary.”

Nile stifled an understanding _ah_ as Joe opened the box with a sigh, big doe eyes all full of emotion as he looked at the ring _he’d_ just picked out like, half an hour ago, and knew that Nicky was buying for him. So it’d been their anniversary today? Or this week, or month. Close enough that Nicky was giving Joe the ring as his present.

What would it be an anniversary for, though? They couldn’t get married—not because they were men, but because of the whole not-having-real-identities-in-the-twenty-first-century _thing_. Had they had a ceremony at some point? Maybe when countries started legalizing gay marriage, with one of their aliases?

A thought struck Nile. What if they got married in a new country every time it legalized gay marriage? Nile’s heart melted. Wouldn’t that be _sweet_?? Nicky and Joe totally seemed like the type, too: both big saps, _that_ couple from high school that sat in each other’s laps at lunch and made out in front of their lockers between classes. Like, the third sentence Nicky said to Nile was about how Joe was the love of his life.

(Nile hadn’t known Booker more than a few days, but she felt bad for the poor guy, and sympathetic towards his pain. He’d lost his wife nearly two centuries ago, and now he had eternity—or damn well near to it—stuck with these two loved-up dorks. She already liked Joe and Nicky plenty, and knew given time she’d love them as her brothers-in-arms, just like she did her girls back in the corps. But she still _understood_ where Booker was coming from.)

Maybe the ‘anniversary’ was something else. A personal milestone for them: first time they met (though, yikes, that’d be the first time they died, wouldn’t it?), first time they kissed, first time they said ‘I love you’, that kind of thing?

Whatever it was, it was cute they were still celebrating after a _thousand_ years. Put her grandma and grandpa’s sixty years to _shame_.

Just as Nile opened her mouth to ask, Nicky tapped her shoulder and pointed ahead of them. “Nile, gelato. Would you like some?”

Nile sighed and patted her stomach. “I would, but I’m lactose intolerant.”

Nicky frowned and turned to Joe. They talked quickly in some language—probably Italian?—back and forth for a second before Nicky’s face broke out in a grin. He turned back to Nile.

“You forget, _Nilette_ : your body heals, now. You cannot be harmed by gelato any longer.”

“Or any dairy,” Joe added, because clearly he was the one who actually understood what “lactose intolerant” meant.

Oh. _Oh_. Understanding bloomed across Nile’s face. “Wait a minute…” she turned to look at the gelato shop lustily. “You mean…”

Joe’s new ring glinted on his pinkie as they fought and shoved over who would get into the gelato shop first.

* * *

Nile made a mental note to start stocking their safehouses with the creature comforts. It’s not like any of her new family was lacking for money—but unfortunately, they _were_ lacking in being a soft millennial from the twenty-first century. Nile might have grown up in Chicago, but _damn_ , her feet were _freezing_ without her slippers on cold mornings like this. Not to mention this particular safehouse was some crazy old building with stone floors, of course. Nile cursed and slipped on two pairs of socks before yanking her feet into boots. Ugg slippers. In every safehouse. She’d buy a pair for each of them (even Booker). Andy would probably complain about how soft Nile was, but she bet Nicky and Joe would appreciate them, at least.

Speaking of whom, the men themselves were already in the kitchen when Nile shivered her way out of her bedroom, hands stuffed into her hoodie pocket. They were arguing about something or other, but in the good-natured way of an old married couple (she still hadn’t figured out if there’d been an actual ceremony at some point). Nile could only pick up every fifth or tenth word because it was in Italian or… something _like_ Italian.

“I guess there’s no heat in this place, huh?” Nile asked as she shuffled her way into the kitchen. The stove was on, a kettle boiling on top, making the kitchen a fraction of a degree warmer than the rest of the drafty old house.

Automatically Nicky and Joe switched to English as they danced around each other with the grace of partners who knew every step.

“Sorry, Nile,” Nicky apologized. “Joe will go get some wood and get the furnace going in a minute.”

“You’re not getting out of this that easy.” Joe waggled a finger at him. “Will you just come with me?”

“My old suit is fine.”

“Where is it.” Joe not-asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against the kitchen table where Nile was curled up. Nile looked between them like she was watching a tennis match as Joe raised both eyebrows and waited for Nicky to reply. “Hmm?”

“I’ll find it,” Nicky replied vaguely. He pulled the kettle off the stove. “Nile, would you like some tea?”

“Sure-”

“What country is it in.” Joe not-asked again, clearly knowing that Nicky _wouldn’t_ know. Nile’s eyes flickered back over to Nicky, waiting with Joe. Nicky’s back was to them as he fiddled around with the kettle and tea leaves and three different mugs.

“It will turn up…” Nicky finally mumbled.

“Ah!” Joe cried, triumphant. He scurried over to Nicky, grabbing his hips from behind to tug him into a careful embrace. Careful, because he made sure Nicky could still prepare their tea, Nile noticed. “You see?! Please, _mi tesoro_ , _lasciami_ -”

“What do you need a suit for?” Nile asked, finally feeling like she’d managed to catch up on their conversation (and not wanting them to switch back to Italian _just_ when she’d figured things out).

“I don’t-” Nicky started, at the same time as Joe insisted:

“ _Every_ man needs a suit.”

Nicky sighed in Joe’s arms and rolled his shoulder back, gently pushing Joe away so he could serve their tea. Nile gratefully wrapped her palms around the chipped mug, bending her face over the steaming cup in an effort not to let any of the heat go to waste.

“My star, my stubborn fool,” Joe sighed, as he accepted his own cup of tea from Nicky. They settled together against the counter, hip to hip, heads turned to stare down each other from mere inches away. They were both smiling, because they were big dorks (in Nile’s professional opinion).

Nicky broke first. He lowered his head and sighed, and Joe laughed in triumph.

“Alright. I will go with you today.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Joe murmured, dropping a kiss to Nicky’s hair. “Write it off as your Christmas present to me.”

“Wouldn’t it be ‘from’ you?” Nile pointed out.

Both men shook their heads near-identically. It was _eerie_ when they did shit like that. “No?”

Before Nile could ask her next question, a chill stole through her and shuddered dramatically. Although she hadn’t meant it, Joe pushed off from the counter.

“Right, wood. Be back in a tick,” he promised. He took a big swallow of tea before dropping a kiss to Nicky’s lips. Then he was gone, hurrying out into the freezing morning without even a coat on. Nile shook her head as she stared after him. Wasn’t he from like, the middle east? You’d think he’d hate cold more than she did.

“Do you want something for breakfast?” Nicky asked, turning back to the stove.

“Oh, no, it’s okay-”

“I am making eggs, peppers, spinach,” he called over his shoulder. He glanced back at her. “Please. It is no matter at all.”

“Well, alright,” Nile acquiesced, and her stomach _was_ growling at the mention of all that food.

As Nicky set to work and the smell of oil and fat frying filled the kitchen, Nile sipped at her tea and enjoyed the small warmth the stove was providing. Then the door burst open and that cocoon of warmth escaped in an instant, out into the frigid December air. Nile whined and hunkered down lower in her chair, but Joe kicked the door shut quick as he could with an armful of wood. He dumped it in front of the fireplace in the next room before crouching in front of it, getting to work on building a fire. After a moment Nile pushed herself up from her chair and shuffled over to stand above him.

“Hey, Joe: can I watch? I don’t actually know how to start a fire without like, a lighter.”

Joe grinned up at her and patted the (freezing) stone floor alongside him. “Come on then, Nile Freeman. Let’s learn something new today.”

Nile grinned and squatted down next to him, and of course Joe pressed a piece of flint and steel wool into her hands, to make her do it herself. He showed her how to prepare the fireplace, the best way to stack the wood, position the tinder. After a few tries she managed to light the kindling, and he bent to show her how to blow on it just right: to encourage it to light and spread rather than go out. Soon enough they had an actual _fire_ , and Nile grinned and sat back on her heels as she soaked it in.

“Breakfast,” Nicky called to them not long after. Joe patted her knee and levered himself up before reaching down to offer her a hand up. Nile grinned and took it, letting Joe haul her up as they went to enjoy the fruits (eggs?) of Nicky’s labor. Joe slid into the seat next to Nicky, legs tangling under the table.

“Does Andy celebrate Christmas, too?” Nile asked as they ate. “I mean, I guess it’s like… a _new_ thing, for her.”

Joe snorted and Nicky smiled into his plate.

“Not really,” Joe finally replied. “Not that I can ever remember. Nicky?”

Nicky shook his head.

“Do you celebrate Ramadan?” Nile asked Nicky. Since, after all, apparently Joe celebrated Christmas with him—enough so that he was getting Nicky a Christmas present! But both Joe and Nicky burst into giggles, so okay, _fine_ , apparently that was a totally stupid question (it shouldn’t have been). “Hey!”

“We don’t do that sort of…” Joe waved vaguely. “Organized religion, anymore.”

“We pray,” Nicky clarified. He smiled softly at Joe. “Sometimes even the prayers of our old religions. Joe and me, more than Andy.” _Or Booker_ , was left unsaid.

“Andy was worshipped as a god by her people,” Joe told Nile. He closed one eye and tilted his head. “So I’m not sure she’s got any old prayers to go back to. Can’t really pray to yourself.”

“Would you like to do something for Christmas this year?” Nicky asked Nile, his voice quiet. His eyes met hers and Nile suddenly realized this would be her first Christmas without her mother. Her brother. It would be their first Christmas without her. Her breath caught in her throat.

Nicky glanced over at Joe, then back to Nile. “I’ll prepare a menu,” he announced. “Feast of seven fishes: you will see. And if you have a preference for mass, I would join you. If you would like that.”

Nile took a deep breath, staring down into her eggs. They were delicious, but now they were turning to ash on her tongue.

“I would like that,” she finally managed, because she would. She would like that.

* * *

It was the smell of Nicky’s cooking that greeted Nile and Andy as they came in from a training session. Nile moaned and made a beeline for the kitchen table, determined to get herself a plate full of food hot off the stove. Andy tapped her on the head.

“Hey. Showers, punk.”

“Food, old lady,” Nile shot back. Andy snorted and let her go, heading back to the shower herself. Nile smiled as she watched her leave, her evil plan to let Andy have first shower totally working. This old safehouse had a tiny hot water heater, and Andy—and Andy’s mortal muscles—deserved to get the little bit of hot water it could manage in a two- or three-hour period.

“That smells amazing, Nicky,” Nile offered graciously. Nicky turned just slightly towards her—not enough to see his face, but Nile could sense him doing that small smile he did, even through the back of his head.

“Thank you, Nile.”

“It’s because he’s cooking it on his new pans!” Joe announced, striding into the room. Reaching up, he pulled an unused pan from the rack above the stove and handed it over to Nile to inspect. “See? Aren’t they gorgeous?”

“They’re beautiful, Joe, thank you,” Nicky called over his shoulder. Nile turned the pan over in her hand. It looked… nice? She didn’t cook much. They were probably nice pans.

“You gave them to Nicky?” Nile asked as she handed the pan back. “What’s the occasion?”

Joe shrugged, nudging at Nicky as he put the pan back.

“Happy birthday,” he said, though it kind of sounded like a question, to Nile’s ear. Still, she perked up.

“It’s your _birthday_?” she asked. “How old are you??”

Nicky turned around, stove apparently not needing his attention for the moment. He squinted at Joe.

“What year is it?”

“Twenty twenty-two.”

Nicky mumbled under his breath in Italian, counting on his fingers.

“I’m nine hundred fifty-six…” Joe muttered helpfully.

“Ah, nine hundred fifty-three!” Nicky announced, triumphant. Though then he squinted at Joe again. “Really?”

“Really,” Joe reassured him.

“Nine hundred fifty-three,” he said again, for Nile’s benefit. He shrugged. “Hard to keep track.”

“Joe is three years older than you?”

At _that_ , something very close to a full, broad grin split Nicky’s face. He stifled it quickly, but Nile had seen it! Joe’s expression was already pained, like he knew exactly what Nicky was going to say.

“He is,” Nicky confirmed. “Which of course, makes him-”

“-the oldest man on earth,” Joe sighed. He made a face at Nicky. “I know, I know.” Turning to Nile, he nodded over at Nicky. “He never lets me forget it.”

Nile’s mouth dropped open. Andy was so much older than all of them, and Nicky and Joe came as a matched set, she had never really _thought_ about it, but…

A giggle. Nile tried to keep a straight face. “Wow, so with you dating Nicky, I guess you’re really a creepy old man?”

“He’s old _too_ ,” Joe insisted. “We’re _both_ old.”

Nicky’s smile couldn’t be stifled. “Yes… but you’re older.”

“I’ll show you older…” Joe grumbled, grabbing Nicky around the waist and kissing him. Nile gagged loudly and held up her hands.

“Forget I asked!” she said, beating a retreat from the kitchen. “Back in a minute for dinner. Don’t burn it, Nicky!”

He muttered something in Italian, too fast for her to parse it, but Joe was laughing so she was pretty sure it was a vicious insult. In her room, Nile kicked off her sneakers and dragged on a clean shirt—even though she hadn’t showered yet, she didn’t want to be smelling herself all through dinner. Then, shutting the door, Nile rummaged around until she found her moleskin notebook. Carefully she recorded _April 5 th: Nicky birthday. 953. _Doing a little math—the reverse of what Nicky had done just a minute earlier, Nile added _1069_ after _April 5 th_. Below that she wrote a note: _Joe birthday: 1066_.

She grinned as she tucked the notebook away with her personal belongings. She’d miss a few important dates these first few years, but soon enough she’d have them all written down and be able to participate in them right along with Joe and Nicky. And she had plenty of time to figure them all out.

* * *

Nile was supposed to meeting the gang for dinner, but of course she was the first one at the restaurant. She rolled her eyes and grabbed a waitress, asking in her garbled Spanish for an _agua di Valencia_ , hitting that _c-th_ sound hard and making the V sound more like a B. Anytime she said it the _normal_ way the people here stared at her like she was speaking a foreign language (which, hey, she was! The least they could do is appreciate the effort!). She stretched her legs out beneath the metal table as she sipped at her giant fishbowl of a drink, filled with orange slices and raspberries. She missed the more sibilant Spanish she was used to in Chicago—Mexican Spanish, with their _ssservessaaas_ instead of sther-vesth-asth. Nile giggled to herself as she repeated the Spain-Spanish pronunciation in her head, over-exaggerating the aspiration more and more.

She supposed however they spoke Spanish in _Spain_ , of all places, was probably the “right” way, so she shouldn’t laugh. Then again, hadn’t she heard somewhere that the New England accent was actually closer to the British accent at the time of the American Revolution than the _current_ British accent? As ridiculous as it was to picture the Queen of England talking like a Bostonian, it didn’t seem outside the realm of possibility. Accents changed over time, and once you put an ocean between two places, especially back then, you were sure to end up with two totally different accents, given enough years. Just like Spain and Mexico. Did that mean Mexico could have the pronunciation more “right” than all these lisping Spaniards?

“Nile!”

Nile turned around just in time to see Joe jump over a chair, a big shopping bag swinging wildly in his left hand. Nile grinned.

“Which accent is more like the _original_ Spanish accent: Spain or Mexico?”

The sudden question made Joe pull up short, and he slowed from his jog to a contemplative stroll the last few steps to the table. Chucking the bag under one chair, Joe scratched at his beard as he threw himself into it.

“Well, you’d have to be specific about when you think Spanish starts,” Joe said, first off.

Nile blinked. “What’d they speak before that?”

“Latin,” Joe told her. “And Castilian, and Catalan, and Basque, and Leonese.”

“Oh.” Nile frowned. “Well, when did they start speaking. You know. The words they’re speaking now?”

“Depends what words,” Joe laughed. He went to gesture between himself and… then he stopped himself with a self-deprecating grin. “You know when me and Nicky talk to each other, we’re not speaking Italian.”

Nile frowned. It sure _sounded_ like Italian. It sure as _hell_ wasn’t Farsi. “What are you speaking, then? Latin?”

Joe shook his head. “Genoese. Back in the day, each city-state had its own proto-Italian: too evolved to be Latin anymore, but too different from each other to be Italian. You want to see Nicky get mad sometime, ask him about Dante.”

“The… hell guy?”

Joe nodded. “It wasn’t until he wrote the _Divine Comedy_ that ‘Italian’ became its own language. And, as Nicky will never forgive, since Dante was from Florence, Florentine Italian became the standard.”

Nile thought about this for a moment. Then she pointed a finger at Joe. “You know, when you say ‘back in the day’ you sound like the oldest man on earth.”

Joe grumbled and waved at the waiter to order himself a glass of water.

Not _too_ long after, but long enough that Nile got sick of waiting and ordered a paella for everyone, Nicky and Andy turned up, strolling down the winding, cobblestone roads. Joe lit up, jumping up to grab the bag from under his chair.

“Nicky!”

They kissed, and Nile was once again struck wondering if they were always this open with their affection. Right now there was a shop just across the street from the restaurant selling shirts with little rainbow ghosts on it. But a hundred years ago; hell, twenty years ago…

“Here,” Joe said, already pulling whatever was in the shopping bag out for Nicky. “You needed a new one and I couldn’t resist the smell of the leather shop. Try it on.”

Nicky laughed indulgently as he let Joe slip a brown leather jacket onto him. It was cute—kind of old-fashioned, with big lapels that reminded Nile of the seventies, but like, still pretty hip—and it fit him just right. Nicky spun around, hands out, as he let Joe admire him and shower him with compliments.

“Thank you,” Nicky told him when the show was over, dropping one more quick kiss to his lips.

“Happy…” Joe trailed off, head tilted to the side. After a moment he said, voice lilting up at the end: “Italian unification day?”

“Wait, really?” Nile asked. “Is that like, Independence Day? American independence, I mean. Like Italy’s birthday?”

Joe and Nicky looked at her for a second. Then Joe burst out laughing and Nicky tilted his head, smiling softly at Nile.

“There’s no such holiday,” Nicky explained kindly.

“But…” Nile held her hands out at Joe.

“I just couldn’t think of anything because it’s June.”

“But what’d you get the jacket for, then?”

Joe squinted at her. “I just got it for him.”

“But then why’d you say ‘happy Italian unification day’?!”

“Because we’re not close enough to any other holidays?”

Nicky stepped forward, placing a hand on Joe’s forearm. “I think I see. That is just our joke. We just started picking the nearest holiday…” He glanced at Joe. Joe shook his head.

“I don’t even remember who started it,” Joe admitted. “Probably me.”

“Probably,” Nicky agreed with a grin.

“Wait!” Nile called out. She grabbed the edges of the table, palms down. “Are you telling me your birthdays _aren’t_ in April and August?” Joe and Nicky glanced at each other, and Nile didn’t even need them to reply. See: she could do the whole silent-communication thing _too_. “What about your anniversary?” Again, that look. Nile groaned and threw herself back in her chair. “I’ve been keeping notes for _years_ , guys!”

“When’s my birthday?” Andy asked her.

“I dunno, nobody ever buys you anything!” Nile grumbled. She waved a hand at Joe and Nicky. “It’s just them two!”

“I _am_ richer than them,” Andy pointed out. Joe and Nicky mock-gasped. Andy grinned unabashedly at them. “Sorry boys. Had a head start.”

“So when _are_ your birthdays?” Nile asked. When all three looked at her blankly, Nile threw up her hands. “What?! You’re not the only ones who want to give presents!”

“No, it’s just,” Joe waved a hand. “Hard to say. When the calendar shift happened we all kind of…” he looked at Nicky.

“Lost track,” Nicky finished for him.

Calendar shift?

Luckily Andy supplied it for Nile: “In the fifteen-hundreds the Church, and most the rest of the Western world, switched to the Gregorian calendar. That’s the one we use today.”

“We lost, what, two weeks?” Joe mused. Beside him Nicky was nodding.

“Something like that.”

“Wait, _what_?”

“Plus, my people used a lunar calendar,” Joe pointed out. “That’s eleven days shorter than the Gregorian solar year.”

That… No, Nile knew that. Because Ramadan shifted backwards a little bit every year. It was like Easter—except Easter stayed within a certain period of time, while Ramadan just kept moving backwards, as far as she knew.

“Ours was solar,” Andy offered, raising her hand. She grinned toothily. “But it wasn’t the Julian calendar.”

“Wait.” Nile held her hands out, palms down. “So you _all_ grew up with totally _different_ calendars from each other? And _none_ of those are the calendar we use now?”

“Booker used the Gregorian calendar,” Nicky told her. He smiled softly. “He knows his birthday.”

“When is it?”

Joe shrugged. “He’d never tell us.”

“December eighth.” Andy was bringing Joe’s water glass to her mouth when everyone turned to stare at her. “Got him drunk once.”

“ _Once_ …” Joe joked, under his breath.

“Okay: but the three of you don’t know your own birthdays? None of you? Like, even if you knew it on your own calendar, we could convert it.” Nile waggled her phone.

Three immortals glanced at each other and shrugged.

“I know it was spring,” Nicky offered. “After Easter.”

“Summer?” Yusuf thought. “Maybe.”

Nile looked to Andy. She just shrugged and shook her head sadly.

“You lose these things. Especially without others around to remind you.”

Nile sagged back in her chair. Shaking her head, she took a big gulp from her _agua di Valencia_. What did you even say to something like that? Luckily the waiter came over just then and Nicky and Andy ordered themselves some drinks.

“What about your anniversary?”

“What anniversary?” Joe asked, at the same time as Nicky smiled and asked:

“Which one?”

Nile groaned and dropped her head back. These _dorks_.

“We weren’t exactly checking a calendar back then,” Joe pointed out. “You mostly just knew what day it was when holidays happened. Especially on the road, which we were most the time.”

“And any ‘anniversary’ of ours would have been in different countries, different calendars,” Nicky continued. He smiled over at Joe. “Many firsts were in lands far beyond the reach of either of our people’s calendars.”

Nile waved her hands frantically. “Okay, okay: forget I asked. I don’t need to hear about the first time y’all… whatever.”

“ _Mi dispiace,”_ Nicky apologized, but with an ironical smirk at the corner of his mouth that said he wasn’t _too_ sorry.

Helpfully changing the subject, Joe poked Nicky in one leather-jacket-clad bicep. “Nicky, when was the earliest we were in Spain?”

Nicky puffed out his cheeks, sighing heavily as he thought.

“With the Jews in the south, _sì_? I was studying with that Rabbi-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Joe agreed, reaching forward to pat Nicky on the thigh. He leaned his forearms on the table, shoulders hunched. “Do you remember their accents? Nile wants to know whose accent is right: Spain or Mexico.”

“They weren’t speaking Spanish yet,” Nicky pointed out. “Not…” he gestured around them. “Not this.”

“Well when did they?” Nile pressed.

Joe scratched his curls, thinking. “Next time we were back was… sixteen- no! Thirteen, the pogroms.”

Nicky frowned brutally. “Yes. That’s right. It wasn’t Spanish yet then, either.”

Nile sighed. “This is impossible. It’s like there’s no real language or accent.”

Andy looked at her. Raised an eyebrow. Nile groaned and threw up her hands.

“Okay! Yeah, I hear it now. I get it.”

“How’d the meeting go?” Joe asked. And then it was back to business, Andy and Nicky relating their next job to them, their impression of the client, etc. But Nile didn’t stop thinking about birthdays lost to time, even all through the next job. After all, now she had all the time in the world to _plan_.

* * *

“Okay, team!” Nile announced one day a few months later. They were resting in a safe house in Istanbul together, kitchen smelling constantly like Nicky’s near-frenetic cooking with every spice he could buy in the Grand Bazar. Joe was fat and happy, over-fed and soft after an exhausting job that had spread them thin for months. Now was the perfect time for Nile’s plan: when they were relaxed, well-fed, and safe.

Andy had been in her bedroom, but she strolled out at Nile’s voice, curious smile tugging at her lips. Joe had been washing dishes while Nicky read a book at the kitchen table (so Joe could talk to him while he worked). Joe turned off the water and wiped his hands, while Nicky turned over his book to save his page. Joe slipped into the chair next to Nicky. She had their undivided attention. Now or never!

“Okay, so. I’ve been thinking about this. And none of you know your birthdays. And I could just like, decide birthdays for you, since none of you _know_ , so any day is good as any other to give you presents. But that feels kind of rude, so I figured you should get a chance to pick your own.

“Besides, we don’t have Christmas as an option for gift-giving, because only two of us are Christians,” Nile gestured between herself and Nicky. “So if y’all want presents from me, we gotta sit down and figure out some birthdays for you.”

“You don’t need to-” Nicky started. But Nile held up a finger, shushing him.

“ _And_ ,” she continued. “ _I_ want presents from _y’all_ , so you better tell me yours so I can tell you _mine_.”

Andy grinned, leaning back against a support pillar in their living room. “When’s your birthday, Nile?”

“December tenth,” Nile answered primly. She passed out small moleskins to each of them. “I already marked it down. Booker’s, too. Now we just have to pick out your three.”

“Pick?” Nicky asked

“Well you don’t remember, right? And there’s no way to figure it out?” She crossed her arms. “Unless you think there is. I’m willing to wait.”

Nicky and Joe looked at Andy. She shook her head.

“No way we’ll be able to dig up mine. We could…” She hummed, thinking. “I had a feast day. Maybe you could find that?”

Nile had her phone out in a flash and Google open. She waggled it at Andy. “Shoot.”

“It was fall. Harvest.”

“Snow-on-the-ground fall or like, days-are-getting-shorter fall?”

Andy sighed, eyes closing as she leaned her head back against the pillar and thought. After a moment she opened her eyes and smiled. “Snow-on-the-ground. Not always. But sometimes. You could see your breath, and there was frost on the grass as the girls danced.”

They ended up settling on November twenty-sixth. Nile waggled her pencil at Nicky and Joe as she waited for them to write it down in their own notebooks, like a couple of naughty schoolboys who weren’t listening to their teacher.

“You’ll get eaten up by Thanksgiving some years,” Nile pointed out to Andy. She shrugged.

“When was the last time I was in America in November?”

“Eighties,” Joe said immediately. Nile frowned, but Andy was nodding her head thoughtfully.

“That wasn’t long. We couldn’t do much, and then Afghanistan…” she mused. Then she shook herself and nodded at Nile. “It won’t be a problem very often.”

Well, that was a depressing detour. Then again it usually was with these guys. She pointed at Nicky next, because she knew if she didn’t just _pick_ one or other of the boys they would spend ten minutes sweet-talking each other into going first.

“Nicky. You think spring?”

Nicky shrugged, nodded. “Easter time. There was always lamb. Strawberries.” Nicky smiled softly, eyes a thousand years in the past. “Limes. Ah, my mother, she would put sugar on the limes…” He looked over at Joe. “I hadn’t remembered that. Not for centuries.”

Joe reached for him, eyes shining. Nile waited, hesitant to press Nicky and interrupt what was clearly an important memory for him.

In his own time Nicky looked back to Nile and smiled. “Spring. April, maybe.”

They settled on April fifteenth, right in the middle. Some years it would even coincide with Easter or Holy Week, which made Nicky smile.

“Alright Joe.” Nile turned on him, pencil waggling. “Now-”

“August fifteenth,” he said immediately.

Nile’s mouth dropped open. “Whoa, did you remember?”

Joe shrugged. “No. But you said you thought August, and if Nicky is the fifteenth, I’ll be the fifteenth.”

Andy snorted. Nile groaned and facepalmed. Nicky, of course, was smiling at Joe and squeezing his hand.

 _Eternity_ with these nerds. Nile was _totally_ going to pry Booker’s number out of Copley just so she could bitch about these two. It was sickening.

In a totally cute way, of course. But _still_. Sickening.

“Alright, fine. August fifteenth. Write it down, people.”

“And then we’re both months that start with ‘A,’” Joe pointed out to Nicky. “A-fifteen!”

“A-fifteen!” Nicky agreed joyfully.

“I’m so done with you two,” Nile sighed. “Andy?”

“You’re done?” Andy asked. Nile nodded. Andy pushed herself up from the pillar with a vicious grin, and Nile remembered why she generally avoided letting Andy have free reign over him time. Ah, shit. Out of the frying pan and all that. “Great. Then we’ve got time to train.”

Full regret, but hey, at least she got everyone to agree on some dates for birthdays. And even if Joe and Nicky would probably buy each other whatever they wanted _whenever_ they wanted, it reassured Nile to be able to retain some degree of normalcy with her new family.

* * *

“Happy anniversary,” Joe murmured, kissing at Nicky’s neck. Nicky tilted his head back with a gentle sigh, granting Joe better access. His hand crept up Joe’s back, pulling him closer as their bodies swayed together.

“Is that a scroll in your pocket?” Nicky teased.

“Plato has nothing on you,” Joe said, nipping at his earlobe. “But it is something, actually.”

Turning around in his arms, Nicky raised an eyebrow as he peered down at Joe’s waistband. From his pocket Joe pulled a packet of wrapped tissue paper, sealed with twine. Nicky smiled as he leaned back enough to allow Joe to present his gift properly.

“A mere token,” Joe demurred. “But, ah. Nile showed me some online stores. You can get anything on them, and…” Joe hummed as Nicky opened the tissue paper to reveal a long strip of thin leather, wrapped three times around to make a bracelet. “Perhaps it is too… well.”

There was lettering stamped into the leather: Greek lettering, twining around the length of the bracelet. Nicky unfurled it and read: “ὄντας ἕνα γεγονέναι καὶ ἕως τ᾽ ἂν ζῆτε, ὡς ἕνα ὄντα, κοινῇ ἀμφοτέρους ζῆν, καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἀποθάνητε, ἐκεῖ αὖ ἐν Ἅιδου ἀντὶ δυοῖν ἕνα εἶναι κοινῇ τεθνεῶτε.”

Nicky sighed and cupped it in his palms, tears brimming in his eyes. “ _Mi amor…”_ he whispered.

“ _…from being two you may be made one,_ ” Joe recited, “ _that so long as you live, the pair of you, being as one, may share a single life; and that when you die you may also in Hades yonder be one instead of two, having shared a single death_.”

Pressing a kiss to Nicky’s nose, Joe murmured:

“He’s not my thing, but I know how much you Italians love your dead Greeks.”

In vain Nicky punched Joe in the arm, with no force behind the gesture, eyes still brimming with tears. He snuffled his face into Joe’s neck to hide his tears even as he laughed.

“Ah, your present is in the bathroom,” Nicky told him.

“Oh?”

Nicky hit him again. “A kit. For your beard.” Lifting his head, Nicky pressed a trail of kisses up Joe’s beard, to his temple, his cheeks. Joe twitched beneath him, trying to draw him to his lips, but Nicky kept him wanting a moment longer. “It smells like sandalwood and leather. Like you.”

He captured Joe’s mouth then, and was rewarded for his patience by Joe’s unrestrained passion, clutching at his arms, tongues sliding wetly over each other in a desperate bid to press closer, closer. _Made one_ …

Later, they lay sweaty and satiated in bed, sheets long lost in the frenetic joining of their bodies, Joe hanging off one end of the bed, Nicky comfortably ensconced on four pillows on the other. Nicky was massaging Joe’s feet and if it weren’t for the way the blood was rushing to his head, Joe might drift off right there. Still might, except Nicky tickled his foot to make sure he was still awake. There was round two to consider, after all.

With a finality Nicky dropped Yusuf’s foot and tapped him on the ankle.

“Love, please. I am cold.”

“I am here, my heart,” Joe announced. Painstakingly he lifted his head from over the side of the bed and crawled up the bare mattress to Nicky’s side. He draped himself across Nicky’s chest, pressing kisses to every inch of skin he could reach.

“I meant: bring me the blankets,” Nicky teased. Because of course he meant no such thing. Joe gave him a little love bite to his breast, just for that. Nicky chuckled and stroked his hand over Joe’s back.

“Should we tell Nile we invented Valentine’s Day?” Joe mused.

Nicky swore and crossed himself, giggling as he received an elbow to his ribs for doing so. “Blasphemy.”

“It is _not_ , Nicky. I’m not saying tell her we invented the _saint_ day, just the modern day. With the cards and flowers and… teddy bears.”

Nicky rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. He gazed down at Joe with love and no little glimmer of mischief in his eyes. “You really want to tell poor Nile that we think we invented romance?”

Joe hummed. “Yeah, okay. Don’t want to break the poor girl just yet.”

“She probably already thinks we _do_ think that.”

A pause. Then, from Joe: “Well. _I_ did-”

“ _Sta zitto, mi amore, stupido, idiota-_ ” Nicky moaned, climbing on top of Joe.

“ _Mi amor, habibi, bello-_ ”

Luckily Nile didn’t have to see them at this, their _most_ insufferable. That, at least, they had the good sense to keep behind closed doors. And special occasions, like anniversaries.


End file.
